There are fifty, that's right Five Zero, Samsung Omnia HD smartphones (8mp cam, huge OLED screen, S60 5th, etc) available to each person accepted as a Omnia HD 'ambassador' next month. If you run a blog or media outlet and can get some buzz going about this latest Symbian OS super-phone then you've got a good chance of early access to the HD and a free device - apply now! The ambassadorial activities are due to start on April 4th, although Rafe and I should be able to bring you quite a bit more hands on Omnia HD coverage before then.
Mobile Royale would like developers to work on a decent Twitter interface for S60 devices. They've posted their challenge on-line, and are pointing to the interface that the Google Search plug-in, and asking for 'something like that' so people can tweet directly from the stand-by screen. There are a number of Twitter clients for S60 available, and a number that are in development, so will anyone take up the challenge?
UK networks Orange and O2 may not carry the latest Nseries devices, including the N97, if Nokia insist on placing Skype on their hardware (reports MoCoNews and others). While other networks have had success with the Skype infrastructure (notably 3 in the UK), the idea of being able to route calls over the internet and not the GSM services has struck fear into others.
Without wishing to harp on about a small third party utility too much, this one's rather popular. Dr Jukka's Y-Browser is now at v0.89(2) and the author has managed to significantly improve the support for touch, including proper 'multi-selection' in dialogs. You can grab version 0.89(2) at the venerable Dr Jukka's web site, along with all the optional companion plug-ins.
Nokia's Second Life team continue with their regular events, and this Saturday the February edition of the Nokia Connected Worlds panels will take place on the Nokia Island in the virtual world. This month, Hydra and the team will be discussing the issues of disability in SL and other systems, and how they act as enabling tools for many.
One thing which Rafe witnessed at MWC was Stantum's demonstrations of some insanely responsive multi-touch applets working on a standard resistive touchscreen. Leaving aside the demo applets (and also Rafe's own comments, he's still writing up MWC as we speak), then surely this type of technology is what Nokia should be building into its touchscreen phones, so that text input can be increased over the currently limited speeds? Demo and more below.
The rumours of a Nokia Netbook have lit up the internet. Even though it would have been hard to deny, the opportunities for Nokia's software services would surely outweigh the cost of building a commodity consumer electronics device. Ewan explains why.
Thanks to a clever developer DOSBox, a DOS emualtor, has been ported to S60. This could potentially give you access to an essential applications from the past as well as a variety of games such as Tank Wars or Prince of Persia. Less usefully, given the speeds involved, it also means is now possible to run Windows 3.1 (and possibly Windows 95 too) on your phone.
Living in Reading in the UK, I've been used to seeing a gradual computerisation of everything to do with the city's travel network, right down to electronic signs at some of the busier bus stops - it's clear that there's now computer awareness of all trains, buses and roads. Which begs the question as to why some or all of this data couldn't be put online for Joe Public to access. There's now an answer for Reading (and for several other UK cities), thanks to mxData and their new MetroTV mobile application, screenshots and details below.
The Phones Show, programme 76, is now up, with my own compilation of MWC news and thoughts, plus musings on Google Latitude and a demo of the wierdest 5800 XpressMusic bug... Of special note is that there's a new theme tune (hurrah) and that I've finally hit on the Holy Grail of Nseries-shot MP4 video editing - it's the new iMovie 09 on Mac OS and it's stonkingly good. More on this shortly on AAS.
It seems that Samsung Mobile Innovator's team signed a version of Python for S60 a few weeks ago - and then forgot to tell anyone. You can grab it here, look for post no. 10. Note that this isn't a complete system, in that there's no signed 'Script shell', so you can't run scripts directly. However, Python apps packaged properly as SIS files should now work OK on the Samsung INNOV8 and i7110, which is a good start. Screens below the break. Now, Samsung programming wizards, how about a working firmware update mechanism, eh?
One of the more interesting demos at MWC was Google's demonstration of off-line access to Gmail through browsers based on Webkit (thanks to Mobile Crunch for the reminder). Of course the demonstration was with the Apple iPhone, but other browsers, including the S60 browser should be able to run the system. It's still in the labs, but could prove an interesting counter-point if released to Nokia's Ovi Mail.
